What are the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project? How are these risks being managed? What contingency plans are ready?
Right now the most significant risk that could jeopardize the success of the project is still the IMU. Fortunately for our team we have been able to calibrate the IMU and read out accurate measurements of acceleration and velocity. However our major roadblock at the moment is making the built in bluetooth functional. Using the packages the manufacturer of the IMU recommends, we have only been able to send one byte of data at a time, as a message (string) that is over a byte long simply gets truncated and only the first 8 bits of data are received. We believe that there is a solution, as forums online have talked about using an older driver for the IMU can fix this issue. We have also considered the idea of doing the computation on the IMU, as it has a fairly powerful microchip on it. But in case all of these options fail, we are fully prepared to move on to a new IMU (with external bluetooth chip) on Wednesday, and increase the size of the ball to house it if needed.
Were any changes made to the existing design of the system (requirements, block diagram, system spec, etc)? Why was this change necessary, what costs does the change incur, and how will these costs be mitigated going forward?
As of now, no changes have been made. We have solidified the design of our “golf ball”, by 3D printing it as a screwable design. The prints are very smooth and roll very well, with plenty of space to house our current IMU and battery design. (I would post a picture but I sadly left the 3D printed balls at school) We have also decided that our frontend will be developed in react, which should pair nicely with our Django backend.
Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred.
We plan to have accurate ball distance (LIDAR measurement) and hit and make detection (IMU and pressure sensor) of a single ball integrated by our project demo. This puts us slightly behind pace as to where we were a few weeks ago. However this still gives us plenty of time to fully complete the 3 player mode with accurate measurements about each putt.